Baillieu poised to win cliffhanger election

Victoria’s Opposition Leader,
Ted Baillieu
, stands on the threshold of a stunning election victory that will reshape the domestic political landscape and could have profound implications for the national reform agenda.

Counting of pre-poll votes in the key seat of Bentleigh last night all but confirmed the Liberal Nationals coalition would claim 45 seats in the state’s 88-seat Parliament, paving the way for Mr Baillieu to claim victory.

Conservatives have hailed the Victorian result as the beginning of a ­renaissance for the Liberal and National parties at state level, which many predict could present real difficulties for some of the Gillard government’s key reforms.

Mr Baillieu signalled in the campaign he may not support the proposed federal changes to hospital funding and has expressed serious ­reservations over the impact of the proposed mining tax on the economy.

Prime Minister
Julia Gillard
, who has not commented on the Victorian result, will designate 2011 as the year of “delivery and decision" in a speech today emphasising her reform credentials. She will nominate putting a price on carbon, health reforms, the national broadband network and lifting workforce participation as major reform targets for next year.

A Baillieu government in Victoria would have significant implications for business and industry, given its policies include reviews of the state’s wagering licence process and the $2 billion foodbowl modernisation project as well as stamp duty cuts and a massive $1.6 billion cost-cutting program within government.

The weekend poll halted the Greens’ momentum after the opposition’s decision not to preference in favour of the party resulted in it being shut out in the inner-city seats it had hoped to seize from Labor.

With the Liberals in government in Western Australia, a likely coalition victory in NSW early next year and the Queensland government struggling, the Labor Party’s fortunes nationally have deteriorated dramatically.

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Despite the result in Bentleigh heading against Labor, John
Brumby
flagged he was unlikely to concede until the bulk of the 550,000 pre-poll votes were counted. Mr Baillieu also declined to claim victory yesterday.

Former prime minister
Kevin Rudd
expressed surprise, saying Mr Brumby had been a very competent premier and that there was a need to look at the result closely.

“Through the processes which the Australian Labor Party has set up for a national review of the 2010 federal election, and also what has occurred now in Victoria, we should have a long, hard look at whether we have got some deeper problems we need to deal with," Mr Rudd said.

Mr Brumby admitted yesterday that Labor was unlikely to be able to form a majority government.

“The most likely outcome would be a hung Parliament, we just have to wait and see."

He said he had sought legal advice as to what should happen if both sides won 44 seats.

“It would be the height of disrepect to the people of Victoria to call a result as close as this without counting half a million votes," he said.

Mr Baillieu’s only public comments came as he emerged from his regular Sunday morning swim, where he said the result would need to wait on the counting of pre-poll votes.

“We’ll wait and see; there’s an amount to go and, as I said, there are a lot of votes still out there, so we’ll wait and see over the next few days," he said.

“I think everyone is keen to get a result but the worst thing we could do is call a result and be wrong on that."

In late counting in Bentleigh yesterday, 3225 pre-poll votes were tallied and the opposition doubled its lead from election night to more than 400 votes. About 1000 ballots were still to be counted in the crucial seat.

“If we win Bentleigh, it’s all over red rover," said Nationals leader Peter Ryan ahead of the pre-poll count.

It was a sentiment shared by Coalition strategists, who said they were confident they would now win at least the 13 seats Mr Baillieu needed to become premier, as the government suffered a swing of 6.5 per cent and lost at least two cabinet ministers.

There are also other Labor-held seats that the Coalition hopes to win once the Victorian Electoral Commission resumes counting pre-poll votes in other seats at 9am today.

Top of the list of prospects are Ballarat East and Eltham in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

The Coalition yesterday attacked the government over its failure to concede the outcome of the election.

Mr Ryan, whose Nationals now hold 10 seats in the Lower House, said Labor had to “come to grips with the harsh reality" that Saturday’s election had damaged its authority “beyond recovery".

“They have had a vote against them of proportions that this state has so seldom seen," he said. “Victorians sent a very clear message to John Brumby and his Labor government, and the essence of that message is ‘It has been nice having you . . . but could you please leave quietly and shut the door as you go’. "

Mr Ryan stopped just short of claiming outright victory.

“I look forward to being able to form government over the course of the next few days," he said. “It is a case of not getting ahead of oneself. We are very careful not to be practising triumphalism . . . at the moment."

Significantly, Mr Baillieu’s victory will come on the back a surging vote in suburban Melbourne as Labor managed to hold the bulk of its regional marginal electorates.

Some Labor insiders argued yesterday that the sheer number of pre-poll votes meant there was still hope that the government could survive.

Mr Brumby himself pointed to the 2006 result in Mount Waverley, when Labor came from 200 votes behind on election night to win on postal and pre-poll votes.

Asked to nominate the issues that hurt Labor, Mr Brumby fingered ­rising cost of living pressures, including higher interest rates, and his government’s longevity as major issues.

“It was always going to be difficult," he said. “When you are defending 11 years and you announce new policies . . . there is a tendency for people to say, ‘Why didn’t you do that earlier?’ It is always going to be a difficult space."

This issue is understood to have been a constant theme in Labor’s polling despite relatively positive ratings of Mr Brumby’s performance.

Party insiders say the desalination plant was also an issue for the government over the course of the campaign, as industrial trouble put the project on the news agenda in the middle of the campaign and rain continued to fill Melbourne’s dams.

“Going into the campaign the desal plant was neutral; through the campaign it was super negative," said one Labor insider.

Mr Brumby said he would not have done anything differently in the campaign even had he known the result.

There is considerable uncertainty about what would happen if Labor did somehow manage to win 44 seats and the election is a tie. The outcome is not dealt with in the constitution.

Labor argued strongly in 1999 that the party with the stronger two-party preferred vote possessed the mandate in a hung Parliament.

Mr Brumby yesterday declined to comment when asked if he felt winning the popular vote was an indicator of a public mandate to govern, saying it was hypothetical.

Asked if the two-party preferred vote was a guide to who should form government in the event of a tie, Mr Ryan said the Coalition would easily win the popular vote.

Former Victorian premier Steve Bracks, who resigned in 2007 for personal reasons, said the outcome would neither help nor hinder the Gillard government.

“If I was them I would just ignore it [the result] and get on with it," he said.

Mr Bracks also tipped the result was the first of a number that would see Labor governments turfed from office.

If, as expected, Labor loses the election then Mr Brumby is widely tipped to make way for new leadership along with his deputy
Rob Hulls
.

Some of Victorian Labor’s factional leaders were already meeting yesterday to begin the process for selecting a replacement for Mr Brumby as leader of the party should he concede.

Most predict the leading candidate from the Right, Tim
Holding
, will stand but may lack the numbers, while the Left’s most likely nomination would be
Daniel Andrews
.

Bendigo-based cabinet minister
Jacinta Allan
is also seen as a talented performer.

Insiders note the factions on the Right lost more seats as a proportion than the Left, meaning the Left’s clout within caucus has increased.